• Everyone starts the day with a green card.
• If you misbehave, you get a yellow card.
• Corollary: If you are good for the remainder of the day, you can switch your yellow card back to a green card.
• If you misbehave while you already have a yellow card, you get a red card. (A red card may not be switched back.)
• If you have a red card at the end of the day, you do not get a sticker for good behavior.

One day Sebastian earned a yellow card for punching another kid in the arm because he was bothering him during story time. He came home with tear-stained cheeks. Interestingly enough, the only other yellow card he could remember was given to a petite girl who sits next to him. Her offense? Punching that same kid!

Apparently this system really is based on soccer, because we learned that you can earn a red card without earning a yellow card first, if the offense justifies it. The only red card given out thus far was given to a boy who cut his hair with his scissors.

Tonight, Sebastian was praying right before bed. He selflessly prayed:

Dear God, thank you for the day today. I pray that no one in my class will get a yellow card or red card tomorrow, or any other day of school. . . .

He prayed not just that he wouldn't get a card, but that no one would get a card . . . and not just tomorrow, but every day of school.

May we all learn to be this selfless with our prayers.

Blue Ribbon: Other Annual (Nasturtium)

Sebastian received three blue ribbons, three red ribbons, and an honorable mention. He was excited to hear the news, and even more excited to see his entry forms with ribbons on them. I have posted pictures throughout this post of the three blue ribbon entries.

Blue Ribbon: Raspberries

Oddly enough, Sebastian's entry that received honorable mention was, in my opinion, the best looking entry he placed. Unfortunately, the category was an artistic category for a bouquet, and Sebastian had only three flowers in a glass jar. The other entries were full bouquets that had been arranged.

Blue Ribbon: Zucchini

One entry was both sad and amusing. One child had brought in blueberries for the show. They were in a Ziploc bag, so I'm guessing he brought them to school on the bus. All five blueberries were completely crushed. Nonetheless, it was the only blueberry entry, so it won the blue ribbon in the blueberry category. So, it's truly a bittersweet victory. I guess it's much better than losing because your berries got crushed.

Me: So, did you learn anything in Kindergarten today?
Sebastian: [pauses] No.
Me: No? You didn't learn anything? You should have learned something . . . that's why you go to school!
Sebastian: Yeah, I learned something.
Me: Oh, OK. What did you learn today at school?
Sebastian: [pauses] I learned lots of things, but I forgot them.

So, there you have it. I wonder if they taught him "short term memory" in school today. If they did, I'll never know.

I don't know about you, but my memories about school are mostly from later grades, and my memories from kindergarten are filtered through an adult perspective now.

Who else but a kindergartner would start their story about phys. ed. by mentioning which color line they had to sit on while they weren't playing the game?

So, in the spirit of these beloved quotes, I am starting a new category, KinderQuotes. Here you will find an abundance of quotes (eventually) as Sebastian provides them with me.

Disclaimer: These quotes are not meant to be "more kind" than any other quote. They are not kinder quotes. They're KinderQuotes, as in quotes from the kindergartner.

Sebastian is early in the pick-up route, so hopefully the pick-up time will remain fairly consistent throughout the year. Since he is early in the route, he gets picked up along with several "swimmers" who are dropped off at the middle school. This means that Sebastian gets to watch other kids get picked up and dropped off before the majority of the other elementary school children are picked up. In order to maintain the schedule, the bus driver waits at the middle school until the appropriate time to continue the route.

The "first day of school jitters" started to take hold of my wife (though I'm sure she'll deny that as a factor here), and she got nervous about Sebastian's ride to school. She offered to walk him to school and to let him ride the bus home. As I mentioned previously, I think the school bus ride is one of the coolest parts about starting school. Pre-school kids just don't get to ride on buses a whole lot, particularly without parents and with thirty to fifty other kids their age. Sebastian had been excited about riding the bus and he didn't want to give that up.

After some "discussion" between me and my wife over any last-minute changes to Sebastian riding the bus to school, we decided that, at least for the first day of school, we would stick with the plan. Sebastian and I headed out to the front lawn to wait.

When we got to the front lawn, our neighbor was out front taking pictures of her daughter. Sebastian was happy to see his neighbor friend and he posed for a couple pictures with her. They were both visibly excited about school. My wife came out with our camera and took several pictures as well.

The bus arrived and Sebastian got on without any trouble. He stopped on the steps to turn around for a few pictures, though I think his mind was more on the excitement of school than anything else. Once in his seat, he happily waved out the window and smiled.

Sebastian gets off the bus at school

My wife drove up to the school to take another picture of Sebastian as he got off the bus and entered school. I like this picture because of Sebastian's body language. He's leaning forward, which is a sign of confidence, plus it looks like he's hiking his pants up as if to say, "All right, I'm here. Let's get to work!" My wife gave Sebastian a quick kiss and he headed into school without hesitation. When my wife described it, she sounded proud of him for not being too attached, but I could also detect that hint of sadness that her son has gained yet another level of independence. To my knowledge, she got through the entire ordeal today without shedding a tear.

According to our paperwork, Sebastian was to be dropped off six minutes after school let out. My wife called the transportation department a few days earlier, and they revised the pick-up time by a substantial amount. They changed the drop-off time to one minute earlier. After orientation, my wife says that the bus driver confirmed with her that he would be one of the first to be dropped off.

Five minutes before dismissal time (ten minutes before Sebastian's scheduled drop-off time), I took Dylan out to the front sidewalk and let him play with sidewalk chalk while we waited for the bus. My wife came out with the camera closer to the scheduled drop-off time and took some pictures of Dylan while we waited. Dylan had a fun time playing with the chalk, though he's still too young to do much more than repeatedly rub it across the same three-inch square of sidewalk. Surprisingly, he only put the chalk in his mouth once the entire time.

Sebastian gets off the bus at home

By the time Dylan was done playing with his chalk, I knew that we had been waiting a while longer than I expected, but we were warned that during the first couple weeks of school that the times would fluctuate as the schedules were set into place. Fortunately, when you're one of the first to be dropped off, there shouldn't be much of a delay. Since I didn't expect to be outside for much more than twenty minutes, I had not put sunscreen on Dylan or myself. (Keep in mind that the sun and I have not been on speaking terms for ten years now due to irreconcilable differences.) Dylan does relatively well with the sun, however I and my skin are less than impressed with the extended exposure.

I decided to get out of the sun briefly by grabbing the mail and running it inside. I was shocked when I looked at the clock and noticed that it was forty minutes past Sebastian's scheduled drop-off time. My first thought was that the bus had come even earlier than anticipated, we had missed it, and Sebastian would be returned to school for pick-up.

Thankfully, the bus came just a few minutes later. The bus driver acknowledged that we had not missed him previously. Judging by the number of kids on the bus and reports from Sebastian, they dropped plenty of other kids off before Sebastian. We'll have to call the transportation office again to find out if this was a one-time deal, or if Sebastian will be dropped off that late during the entire year.

Of course, Sebastian was so much in awe of the bus-riding experience that he didn't mind or notice at all.

Sebastian and I got kicked out of the bedroom for talking too much while my wife and Dylan tried to sleep, so we moved to Sebastian's room to talk some more about school and other goings-on in Sebastian's life. I briefly attempted to pick out school clothes for Sebastian to wear on his first day of school. As a note, I knew for sure that the selected clothes would soon be vetoed by my wife as soon as they were noticed, so I skipped that all-too-familiar process and sent Sebastian to his mother for wardrobe selection duties. Sebastian and I went to the kitchen and casually prepared and ate some cereal.

By this time, my wife was up and awake and helped Sebastian with the details of getting ready. My wife also verbally gave him the obligatory list of "twenty things to remember on your first day of school when you can't even remember to bring your own backpack with you." The way that mothers check, recheck, and rerecheck things with kids on their first day of school reminds me of all the procedures that astronauts have to go through from the moment they start getting ready to the moment of liftoff, except instead of sending a thirty-something into outer space, you're sending a five-year-old a few blocks away.

I also marveled at the sight of my wife writing Sebastian's name inside each of his shoes. You just don't see that every day — but if you do see that every day, you might want to get that person checked for OCD.

Originally, we were told that Sebastian would have to walk to school, but it turns out that he is able to take the bus. This will obviously be advantageous during the winter — especially for me and my wife, who would have to walk (or drive) to and from the school. Now, we get to stand out in the freezing cold during the winter and run back into the warmth of our house after the bus picks him up.

On the way to orientation, I rode the bus with Sebastian. He will be one of the (if not the) first ones to be picked up in the morning. A couple kids who went to pre-K with him also ride his bus, but they are picked up much later in the route. He noted this rather casually, so I don't think he really knows these kids too well.

Sebastian was excited to find out last week that his best friend from pre-school will be in his class. The teacher who gave him his Kindergarten entrance test will be his teacher this year. He got along with her well during the testing, and he seemed comforted that he "knows" his teacher already.

Orientation only lasted about an hour and a half, most of which we spent in a parents' meeting, filling out forms and listening to people talking about the forms we were filling out. I did convince my wife to apply for a newly created "Health and Wellness" committee . . . and by "convince," I mean "place the application sheet in front of and point out one particular committee." I'm apprehensive about the PTO, but the admission is cheap, and they have plenty of fun-sounding activities. We'll see how this pans out.

Tomorrow is the big day. Pictures will hopefully be posted then! I'm glad that Sebastian gets to ride the bus instead of walking. After all, what is a first day of school without getting on the bus?